Mission Computer problems

Hello again, it's me back with more questions. Hooray! Anyway when creating a mission I have an option to select cargo type. I've seen several cargo type strings with all the names listed, however MC only offers me about 30 options to choose from. How can I set the cargo type to something that's not on that list and how can I make my own cargo type? I want to have the player transport deeds and paperwork for a mission string I'm working on and I'd like it to be customized more that just "writs". Thanks for your help!

EDIT: Also, is there any way to let the player choose a name for a planet? I can't figure out a way to do it, I don't think the game is set up that way. However if anyone knows a way let me know!

This post has been edited by huffysama : 03 August 2009 - 02:19 PM

Can't help with the first one, but when you say choosing a name, do you mean choosing an automatically randomized name made by MissionComputer? If so, that's a negative. You could search up name randomizers online--you'd get a lot of sites that do such that way.

I'm just learning my way around development, also, and I was puzzling over this for an hour or more last night. It seems like the names of "special" (i.e. mission-related) cargoes are contained in STR resources. For example, if you open Nova Data 5, STR #s 4000 - 4002 contain many (all?) of the special cargoes used in the game.

Not entirely sure how to add more, yet, or how to reference them... when I finally found the existing cargoes list I felt like that was victory enough and called it a night.

Good luck!

QUOTE (huffysama @ Aug 4 2009, 03:13 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

EDIT: Also, is there any way to let the player choose a name for a planet? I can't figure out a way to do it, I don't think the game is set up that way. However if anyone knows a way let me know!

You could feasibly have a multiple choice question that leads to a planet name (Do you think the planet should be named XXX or YYY?), but you couldn't have a player pick a name from scratch (Enter Planet Name here:).

That's what I figured with the planet names. With the cargo types I noticed that Mission Computer is just wacko. It said I was transporting a Prisoner even when I picked Documents from its own drop down menu. I'm going to try and see where the Prisoner came from and figure out what string it's using.

I figured it out. The drop down menu for cargo when creating a mission is useless. For some reason, when you put in a number from the cargo type STR#, MC chooses the one below that for the mission. EG, if you put in 14, the mission will have cargo type 15. Odd, but easy to work around.

This post has been edited by huffysama : 05 August 2009 - 10:29 AM

QUOTE (huffysama @ Aug 5 2009, 11:19 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The drop down menu for cargo when creating a mission is useless. For some reason, when you put in a number from the cargo type STR#, MC chooses the one below that for the mission. EG, if you put in 14, the mission will have cargo type 15.

I'm having trouble tracing this at first glance. It turns out that the pop-up menu is another part of MissionComputer that was broken by EV Nova 1.1's new file format, so at the moment I'm seeing the cargo types from EV Override , which isn't much help.

Is the problem affecting all cargo types including 0-5, or just the higher-numbered ones?

QUOTE (David Arthur @ Aug 7 2009, 12:24 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm having trouble tracing this at first glance. It turns out that the pop-up menu is another part of MissionComputer that was broken by EV Nova 1.1's new file format, so at the moment I'm seeing the cargo types from EV Override , which isn't much help.

Is the problem affecting all cargo types including 0-5, or just the higher-numbered ones?

The problem doesn't affect 0 through 5 because Mission Computer is compensating for those (labeling them as one less than their STR number). However the higher level cargos are all (or at least mostly) messed up. I'd look in the all cargo types STR and put in the number that's one less than the cargo type you want.

QUOTE (huffysama @ Aug 11 2009, 08:07 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The problem doesn't affect 0 through 5 because Mission Computer is compensating for those (labeling them as one less than their STR number). However the higher level cargos are all (or at least mostly) messed up. I'd look in the all cargo types STR and put in the number that's one less than the cargo type you want.

That's what MissionComputer already does; the list you're seeing is generated automatically, and its behaviour seems to match what the standard scenario expects. (For example, mïsn 569 'Charter Flight' requests cargo type 6, which MissionComputer's pop-up menu identifies as 'Passengers', and mïsn 151 'Take Mu'Randa to Sol' requests 29, identified as 'Mu'Randa' in the pop-up menu.)

Since you referred to 'Documents', which isn't a standard cargo type in EV Nova , I think your problem actually has nothing to do with cargo type numbers, but is the result of the format issues I mentioned in my previous post. EV Nova 1.1 changed its file format to a new type, and I'm still finding features in MissionComputer that were broken by the change. The cargo type pop-up menu is one of them, so I think you're seeing the defaults, which are left over from EV Override. 'Documents' is a cargo type in that game, and it has the same number as 'Prisoner' in EV Nova , so that explains what you described happening.

Since the new version no longer invites users to modify its data files, it should be a sufficient solution to hard-code the default cargo types for EV Nova into MissionComputer; they'll always be overriden anyway if there's a STR# resource ID 4000 in the current file.